Who You Gonna Call?
Choosing an Antivirus Program
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When it comes to looking for a good antivirus most people go with what they know, or what their friend or neighbor knows. Times have really changed from when there were only two or three programs to choose from when selecting an antivirus program. Times have also changed in respect to the amount of viruses that they are out there these days. In a report by Sophos Labs, maker of antivirus solutions for businesses, it was reported that new threats increased by 48% in 2005 over the previous year and that 1 out of 44 emails contained a virus. Sophos has some good information regarding viruses and malware which you can read online at http://www.sophos.com/sophos/docs/eng/comviru/viru_ben.pdf
In today’s world of computing weather you connect to Internet or not, dial-up or broadband, the issue is not weather or not you need an antivirus program but which one to choose. I have seen many computer users faced with the problem of an ineffective, disabled or inadequate antivirus program. If you’ve searched for “the best antivirus” online you are invited to an onslaught of information, some with an obvious bias towards one product or another. How do you cut through the sales pitches and mumbo jumbo? A little detective work may help in the hunt for your next antivirus program.
Unfortunately some of the better independent reports on antivirus programs are buried deep in the bowls of the Internet and some want you to pay for a subscription to their reports. Virus Bulletin is one mark most AV venders strive for to market their wares. Their latest summary can be found here http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/results?display=summary
ICA Labs is another independent study group and you can view their latest test here https://www.icsalabs.com/icsa/topic.php?tid=d538$5b726a90-9fc5fd83$c47c-869278e7
These reports only tell you if the software vendor has passed their test and not any detailed information about the programs functionality or features. A company out of Austria called AV Comparatives has produced an impressive report http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse_2006_02.php While it still does not talk about functionality or features it gives a breakdown as to what the programs detection rates are in the different virus categories.
If you are searching online using Google you can skip the “Sponsored Links”. At the top and to the right side, these are links that advertisers pay to have included in searches. While that isn’t necessarily a bad thing I find that anybody can pay to have their ad placed at the top of the search results list. After clicking on some of these links I find their claims to way off the mark and obviously bias. Another problem I find is that many reviewers only review the names you already heard of – Symantec, McAfee, TrendMicro and so forth and don’t review some of the up and comers that have gained notoriety by offering better detection rates and using fewer resources. Much of this is probably due to the fact that reviewers are looking for the all-in-one security suite programs. However most experts will tell you that you should look for the “best of the breeds” – meaning a separate and independent antivirus, antispyware and firewall. Some pure breed antivirus programs have incorporated malware scanning into the virus scanner. While this is a good thing it is still highly recommended that you have a separate malware or spyware scanner in your arsenal.
Here are some places you might look to investigate your next antivirus program:
http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirussoftwarereviews/
http://www.software-antivirus.com/
http://www.firewallguide.com/anti-virus.htm
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6600_7-6379091-1.html?tag=cnetfd.sd
Just a few words on the free antivirus programs that are available. Free is good in most cases but from what I have read these programs always rank at or near the bottom of most independent tests if they rank at all. So yes, you get what you pay for.
All in all it is up to you as to what antivirus program you use. The “What to look for” features in an antivirus program are all covered by any antivirus program that I know of. But for the record here they are:
Starts automatically with Windows
Updates automatically or prompts you to update it
Scans incoming and outgoing emails
Scans real time (meaning it is scanning as activity is happening, i.e. Internet downloads)
On demand scanning (gives you the opportunity to scan files and folders at your discretion)
On access scanning (scans files as they are accessed)
Antivirus software - don’t compute without it.
